


The Mothers Of The Citadel

by gracediamondsfear



Category: Mad Max Series (Movies)
Genre: Blood, Dubious Underage, F/M, Knife Play, Slow Burn, ritual scarring
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-06-02
Updated: 2015-07-20
Packaged: 2018-04-02 11:30:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 16,828
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4058377
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gracediamondsfear/pseuds/gracediamondsfear
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Max returns to the Citadel to help Furiosa heal herself and the city, while learning more about the true identity of the War Boy charged with serving him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Healing Waters

He ended up back at the Citadel. Not long after he’d left, either. 

But yes, he did leave. He'd assured her of that even as she hung on the precipice of death. He'd told her he couldn't stay. And as all the people rushed forward, holding out their dusty, sunburnt arms to the platform lifting her to the upper levels; as they held up their vessels, dirty and rusted to the icy flowing water rushing over them, he'd quietly made his way in the opposite direction, grabbing one of the War Boys' bikes. He could hear their cheering, their chanting, even music until late into the night, when the sky was purple blue, the moon a thumbnail in the sky.

He took the road slow, still wary of those enemies he’d left alive, the men they’d escaped from but were still good and angry. He drove west in silence until he couldn’t any more, until he was at least a day’s distance from the Citadel. 

There was a wreck on the barren flats on the road to the Refinery. It was long abandoned with dried and struggling grasses growing up through the burnt out motor of the beaten war vehicle, what looked like an old armored bus, a transport for dozens of people, tanks to hold either water or gasoline. He hid the bike behind it and made himself a place to rest inside. Of all the things that pained him, exhaustion was the worst, the never ending. He had water to drink, he’d gotten food from the mothers, the wives. They knew he was going to leave them and had given him gifts for his journey, thinking he deserved some sort of reward for having nearly killing them all.

Time was all he needed. Time for things to die down, for power to change hands, for focus to change to something else, or back to simple to survival. He could find himself safe somewhere else, with other strangers, other outcasts. Was he ever going to stop wandering? Stop moving forward? It was all he knew.

So he settled in, curling up like the wounded animal he was, waiting to heal. He ate and drank in the dark, hanging his jacket up in the cracked window of the overturned truck to block the wind and sand, wrapping his face in his scarf so he could breathe during the storms. Still he was weak, dizzy, even with hours of sleep and a full stomach; even with clean water and bandaged wounds. It felt to him like perhaps he was near the end of his story. Perhaps the redemption that Furiosa had sought had been what he was seeking too and having found it for her, having given her back her life, that was enough. The ghosts didn’t bother him so much in the past days, stopping his heart, blurring his vision. He heard them sometimes, the screams, the questions…but they were fading. Like he was, becoming a ghost himself.

Once the moon went down, blackening the sky, he fell asleep, slumped against the metal, rubbing the wound in his arm, bruised and tender, where he’d given his lifeblood to bring another back. 

*************

He woke at a bump in the road. It’s how he found himself stretched on the back of a truck, two War Boys hooting and hollering as they drove him back towards the Citadel, the bike he'd stolen strapped down beside him. He made a move to sit up, attracting their attention.

“Don’t bother,” the passenger yelled, the taller of the two, the older. “Tied you down, mate. Safety! Safety first!”

They both laughed as Max tried the leather straps at his wrists and across his waist. They weren’t particularly tight, he wasn’t a captive, no chains, no mask, no blood tube. He was simply being taken back, a passenger in their vehicle. So he lay back and looked at the sky, bright blue, the morning air already hot, the dust already stinging his eyes.

*************

Already life was changing at the Citadel. Those enslaved and imprisoned had been set free, the citizens had built a sturdy reservoir from rocks and scrap metal, catching the constant stream of fresh water that The Mothers left running around the clock. And with water came a degree of peace on the ground. It was new, and still stretching its wings, but no longer did every man and woman have to battle for survival, stabbing their neighbor in the throat for a clean litre of water. Pulses were slower now, knots started to unravel. Favors and help were easier to come by. 

Still, the lift separated the two classes, the governing and the governed, and the War Boys drove Max onto it as more citizens clamored to be lifted with them. A handful of them stood around the open bed of the truck poking and staring at Max, recognizing him as the man who'd brought the body of the tyrant to them, looking at his healing wounds, the weapons strapped to his arms and waist, the makeshift brace that kept his knee working, his leg strong. 

“Furiosa’s blood bag!” The driver shouted out. “She’ll be all smiles to see you, that’s right.”

“We’re The Furiosa’s hero!” said the passenger, the two of them hooting and hollering with joy. “She sent us to find you, said she needed to find you!”

It didn’t sound right to him. She’d known he was leaving, they’d discussed his leaving. He wouldn’t have left if she still needed his help. But he stayed quiet. They’d reached the top.

*************

There were fewer people there than before, fewer boys, fewer men turning the cogs. The War Boys he saw were carrying equipment, boxes and bags filled with supplies, fresh food and medicine, containers of Mother’s Milk and vessels for water. As soon as the boys took him off the lift the others loaded themselves on, taking supplies down to the masses, their positions having instantly changed from weapons of war to tools of peace. Some grumbled, uncomfortable with the change, the thirst for battle still running in their half dead blood. Others, the newer, the younger, the more alive, less scarred, were relieved to have something other than killing in their future. 

The boys from the truck unstrapped him and helped him to the platform. There he saw Capable speaking to a young boy as she looked out over the landscape through the giant telescope. 

“We found him! We found him. Furiosa’s blood bag out on the flats!”

Capable stood, wrapping her robe around her shoulders. Her hair was pinned up now, away from her face, her cheeks pink with sun from keeping watch. She smiled at the boys and indicated they should let Max go, pulling him into a hug.

“He’s not a blood bag, he’s a man,” she said. “He gave half of his blood to Furiosa to save her life, he shouldn’t be out on his own. We told him not to go out on his own.”

The boys nodded and ran off to their other duties. A hug. An embrace. He hadn’t felt warm arms around him in nearly a decade, hadn’t felt the touch of someone who cared for his well being. 

“The truth is, Max,” she said, holding him close, her voice barely above a whisper. “She isn’t well, still. She’s pushing herself too fast, too far, looking to do too much, just like you. She still needs your help, another transfusion. She needs someone to talk to her, to tell her to rest.”

He stared at her, then at the young boy who stood behind her, staring at him as if he were a ghost. The boy blurred into a double image.

“But you’re not well enough to help anyone are you, not even yourself, are you?” She held his face in her hands and smiled. “Tharn! Take him back to the room we prepared. Get him in the bath, give him something to eat and go see if the doctors have something for him, something to help him. Can you walk?”

Max nodded and the boy took his arm, leading him deep into the maze of the Citadel.

“What’s your name again?” Max asked him. 

“Tharn the Wicked,” he said, his voice eager but weak, a sort of forced smallness. “Tharn for short. Capable is my sister.”

Max looked him over as they walked back to the room; past the empty cages where men once hung, past the walls he was once chained to. The boy was small, no real muscles yet, only a few of the ritual scars on his thin arms and between his shoulder blades. His skin wasn't coated in white war paint, still natural albeit pale. But he held his head high, a long neck, still a fuzz of dark hair on his head. His ribs were wrapped with white bandages, dirty and worn at the edges, one side secured to his shoulder.

“How were you hurt?”

“Hurt?” Tharn looked up, puzzled but quickly recovered. “Scarring. It’s healing, but taking longer than usual.”

The walked the rest of the way in silence, Tharn looking at the ground.

They’d prepared one of the wives’ rooms for him. It was windowless, but lit golden with oil lamps. There were walls of bookcases, worn volumes with broken spines. The bed was sumptuous, deep with furs and thick pillows. It made him tired just to see it and he sat on the edge to keep from falling. Tharn went to the opposite where an iron bathtub was steaming, half full of water, holding his hand in the running faucet.

“Your bath is ready. They’ve put oils and herbs in it, to help you sleep, to help you feel better. I’ll get you something to eat while you soak. Some water to drink. Or we have wine. It used to be just for the wives, but they said you could have it. Anyone can have it now.”

“Just water,” Max said, shrugging out of his jacket.

Tharn stood and watched him strip out of his torn and dirty shirt, unbuckling the holsters and straps that held weapons to his torso. He was covered in his own scars, bullet holes and burns, healing slashes covered in dried blood, the scabbed over brand of the Citadel, the tattoos of the repair boys dark down his back. It was awful. But still, he was strong. Or at least he looked strong.

“What’s wrong with your leg?” Tharn asked, as Max unbuckled the straps of his brace.

“Gunshot wound. Just hit me in the wrong place. Never got better.” 

He walked toward the bathtub unbuckling his belt, stretching his neck from side to side, sighing with pain and exhaustion. His clothes a dirty pile on the floor that Tharn gathered up, smelling his sweat and blood in the fabirc.

“I…I…” Tharn looked everywhere but at Max. “I’ll get your water.”

Tharn made it out of the room before Max had managed to strip naked and ran down the hallway to the secret staircase that wound downwards into the mountain to the cold dark room dug out of the rock. 

After locking the door she collapsed on the floor, her cheeks burning, her breath coming short, her chest aching with pain from the bandages that hid who she really was. 

Capable had been right. He looked like a furious angel.


	2. Fresh Start

She had known her sister was going to be beautiful from the moment she was born. Capable saw it in the baby's porcelain skin, her long slim fingers and big green eyes. And as the girl grew, her auburn hair falling in little ringlets around her pink cheeks, she saw Joe’s boys eyeing her. And not just the boys, but the milking mothers, the other wives…Joe himself.

" _What a pretty little girl, so perfect she is._ "

That was when Capable knew she had to disappear. She took the girl down, deep into the mountain, to the hidden supply room dug out of the rock.

“You’re a boy now, your name is Tharn the Wicked. Say it to me,” she said, shaving the girl’s head and cutting the first initiate scars into her skinny hairless arms.

“Tharn the Wicked,” she repeated back, her eyes wet and sparkling with tears. “Why? Why are you hiding me? What did I do? Am I in trouble?”

Capable took her by the shoulders, putting her in front of a cracked mirror that leaned against the wall. Blood was seeping through the muslin tied around her arm and she felt naked wearing only strips of bandage around her chest and a pair of boys pants, baggy and dark.

“All of this is keeping you safe, sister. I don’t want you to end up like me. I don’t want you to be locked up, a possession. Look. I’ve made this place as comfortable as I can. I’ll bring you books and food and when you’re old enough you can join the Repair Boys, or the War Boys, anything that will keep you from turning into me.”

“But there’s nothing wrong with you,” Tharn said, combing her fingers through her big sister’s fiery hair, over her dewy cheeks. “You’re perfect.”

“Hardly,” Capable answered, handing over a small stack of books. “Read these. I’ll bring you more. Dag and Cheedo will come stay with you when they can. Don’t be afraid. Be strong. OK?” And with that, she was gone.

********

She gave Max time to get settled in before bringing him food and water. One of the New Mothers of the Citadel had given her a clay mug of warm poppy tea to give him.

“For pain and sleep. He’ll thank you.”

She carried it all in on a tray, her heart hammering in her chest, afraid of what condition she might find her “fellow man” in.

He was clean, his hair damp, wearing the loose linen clothes that The Dag had found for him - simple white linen pants and a tunic. She could see the sun darkened skin of his chest, the sinewy muscles of his forearms.

“Hey,” he said, turning away from the bookshelf. He had been flipping through the volumes, the history of the world before it burned away, a book full of ocean birds, whales.

“I - I brought you medicine and food. Y-you can’t give blood to the Imperator until you’re back to full strength. You’re too tired.”

“Always tired,” he said, limping towards the bed.

She liked watching his lips form words, his eyes searching the room, sometimes catching her gaze, making her breath stop in her throat. She put the tray down on the desk and ran to pick up his knee brace from beside the bath. It was still warm from being wrapped tight around his leg. She carried it over and knelt in front of him like a page presenting armor. He took it, patting her shoulder. “Thanks kid. Where is she? Furiosa?”

Tharn stood, still feeling his hand on her bare skin, hot like a brand. These were strange feelings. Confusing to be sure, because her whole life was men. Day in, day out she was surrounded by them, learning how to gas up the rigs and repair them, how to run on the cogs to bring up the lift. She ate with the boys, learned drumming from the boys, sometimes, without even thinking, she would run through the water with the boys, leaving on her bandages of course, getting in splash fights with the younger ones, wrestling them to the ground. But none of the half dead, even the strongest, not even Slit, had made her feel like The Furious Max did.

“She’s in her rooms. She has her own sanctuary. Away from all of this, up near the green. She likes to be near the water and the grass. I like it up there too. She doesn’t want to rest, but they make her rest.”

“I doubt they _make_ her do anything,” he said, the corner of his mouth quirking up into a hint of a smile. “Can you take me up there?”

“Not yet, I’m not supposed to yet. You have to have the food. And the medicine. I'm supposed to make sure you do those things.”

“Yeah? I am hungry.” He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, resting his head in his hands. “Dizzy.”

Tharn ran for the poppy tea and put it in his hands, pushing it up towards his mouth. “Drink this. All of it. The Mothers said it will help you to sleep and to heal. They know about medicine, about plants that work better than machines. I've had the poppy tea once, Capable brought it to me when I twisted an ankle on the cogs. I slept like a statue.”

She sat at his feet while he drank the bitter tea, making faces after every sip that made her laugh. He was watching her, looking her over like he knew something, or was figuring something out, and it made her nervous. He was smart, smarter than the Boys. She crossed her arms over her chest but he grabbed her wrist and pulled her arm out straight, looking at the scars on her creamy skin, the concentric circles, set in a V, an arrangement of stars in the Eastern sky that the war pups wished on because they resembled the outline of the pistons. Hers were well scarred over, barely even pink anymore. Soon she’d have to get more, on her biceps, her back…the front of her chest if she wanted to prove herself.  Once you turned seventeen you needed to make a blood sacrifice to the engine.

“You do this yourself?” he asked, running his rough fingers over the scars. His brow was furrowed. She’d upset him somehow.

“Capable did. She gave me my first symbols. They prove my dedication.”

“To what?” he asked, but she could tell she wasn't supposed to answer. Rhetorical.  That was a word Cheedo had taught her.

She pulled her arm back and touched the scars herself. They’d had to hold her down when Capable made the cuts, The Dag singing to her while the blood dripped down in thick rivulets. They’d all been crying, shaking their heads at the madness of it.

“ _She isn’t a machine_ ,” Cheedo had said, stroking the girl’s newly shorn scalp. “ _She isn't a half dead. This is all ridiculous_.”

“ _I don’t want Joe touching her. If I have to hurt her once to make sure that never happens, then I’ll hurt her once_.”

“What about these?” Max asked, touching the bandages that covered her breasts. His eyelids fluttered. The words were beginning to slur, come slower. “What are these?”

She gasped and jumped up from the floor, grabbing the empty mug from his hands and making herself busy.

“I have to go. You need to rest. I’ll come for you in the morning.”

When she turned back he was asleep, laying on his side, his bare feet still on the floor. She put the tray down and lifted his legs, resting them on the bed and pulling a blanket up over his body. The room was quiet, just the tiny rasps of his breathing. She held her fingers in front of his mouth to feel his breath on them, daring for just a moment to touch his bottom lip, surprisingly soft and warm.  That's what it was.  The Boys were all so cold.  Even with fresh blood running through them their skin was clammy, cool to the touch.  Max radiated warmth, it flowed from him, ran under his skin.  She touched the point on his neck where she saw his pulse beating.

“Tharn!” A harsh whisper from the doorway. “What are you doing?” The Dag stood there with a smile on her face, shaking her head.

"I...he drank the tea and fell asleep, but he didn't even get under the blankets.  I was..."

"I know. I know. You were just looking at him. He's quite a specimen isn't he?  It's been a long time since I've seen a healthy man like him."

"He's beautiful," Tharn said without thinking, the words just tumbing out.

"Be careful little Wicked," The Dag said, leading her from the room. "You don't want to be found out."

Tharn followed her out of the room, her mouth set in a tight frown, wanting to argue back.  It was getting harder and harder to pass herself off as one of the Boys.  The bandages hurt her growing breasts, the pants she wore hung low and awkward on her curving hips.  Once she'd started bleeding, Capable had taken to hiding her more often claiming that the half dead could smell the iron running through her. 

She wasn't a child anymore.  And Immortan Joe was dead.  What reasons were left for her to hide?


	3. The Green

The servant boy Tharn was different from the others. Max could tell that on sight. It wasn’t just the slight willowy frame, or the way he kept his eyes turned down to the ground instead of that burning glare of ambition he’d seen in the others, the older War Boys cackling gleefully into death. It was his skin. It was warm, with dark veins running beneath it like tree branches. There was a pulse that raced, strong and lively in his wrist. Max has only fought the War Boys a couple of times in the past few months since finding himself broken down near the Citadel, but every time he’d been thrown off by the cold, clammy touch of their skin, even in the heat of day, even after hours of battle, the way they didn’t sweat, didn’t flush. He’d carried the Boy Nux on his back in the stark afternoon sun and still it was as if a cape of cooled leather were around his shoulders.

And there was his hair.

Furiosa had explained to him that The War Boys were pale and bald and gaunt from the fallout. The radiation sickness had taken hold of them as children, right after the Great War, and their hair never grew back. Max remembered people like that from when he was a child, sick women with silk scarves tied around their heads, children so pale and ill that their eyes were ringed in blue brown bruises making them appear as skulls. Back then they used radiation as a cure. Because it was such an efficient killer.

Some of the younger War Boys, the second generation born at the citadel or stolen from surrounding tribes had thin, downy heads of hair, patchy and weak, no need to shave it because it barely showed up and was covered easily by the powder.  Those were the kind of children they stole -- the wives told him -- the easily brainwashed, easily convinced that life in the ranks at the Citadel was a better chance at survival.  Living in the rocks, in the darkness and the sickly damp quickly made them more like their half dead mentors. That and the blood. Furiosa had told him of the rituals, the new generation taking blood from the half dead as a way to recycle their lives yet again. Once one had “Ridden to the Gates”, he was immediately drained, his remaining blood transferred to the younger boys waiting in line. They were told it would make them strong but Furiosa and the Wives told them that they knew better. It was to keep them weak.

But Tharn had hair, a dark fuzzy shadow on his head, not patchy or washed out.

There was something different, but he couldn’t put his finger on what it was.

********

The poppy tea was a gift he could never repay. When his eyelids closed he found himself drifting, floating back to somewhere cool and smelling like Lemon Myrtle. He could hear music he hadn’t heard in years, decades. Instead of running from armored cars and fire, ghosts and killers, corpses and blood he was seeing the land he used to live in, when he was a child, a man, an officer, a father. He could smell the water, the trees. He could feel the touch of her skin, smell her hair. He could feel wind off the ocean.

_“I found you. Finally I found you. Do you want to see him?”_

*********

Tharn was beside the bed when he woke up, barefoot, kneeling with his back to him and laying out cards. Max winced at the raised branding scar on the back of his neck. The same that still ached with pain on his own skin. The cards. Max had seen them a hundred times before. A woman he’d known long ago, who lived next door to him would read them and tell people’s future. She died in the Great War. They say no one had seen it coming. But really everyone had.

Tharn’s cards were old, torn at the corners, the colors faded. The backs were royal blue with gold scrolling, like a night sky in the desert. He laid them out on the dirt floor in a cross while Max watched, laying still, his eyes half open, pretending to sleep while the boy did his silent reading.

In the center was the Nine of Wands, a man leaning against a pole driven into the earth; to its left the Three of Swords, blades driven into a red heart and to its right the Knight of Cups, a shining knight on a white horse. Above was the Eight of Swords, a woman bound and blindfolded, surrounded by swords driven into the ground, and below the Hierophant Reversed – a card that had frightened him as a child, so solemn and symbolic, the blank face staring off into the future.

He watched Tharn interpret the cards, touching each one, making little sounds, nodding, moving them with the tips of two fingers, his head cocked to the side as if actually pondering their meaning. As if there was any meaning to anything. He hadn’t seen faith in ages.

“The Knight,” the boy said, almost under his breath. “Of course.”

Max made a noise, uncomfortable with eavesdropping any longer yet mesmerized by the boy's shoulder blades poking out from his back like a prowling cat as he shuffled up the cards again. At the noise he jumped up, shoving them into a pocket on the side of his pants. Max noticed for the first time the rings of keys, the pliers and ratchet that hung from loops of leather, the flat hairless stomach. 

“You’re awake. You slept for a long time Mr. Max. Almost a day! Are you hungry? I can get you something to eat.”

“No I’m good, Tharn. Thank you.” 

Max stood and stretched his arms over his head, shuffling to the chamber pot in the corner. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d had a full bladder, that he hadn’t woken up with his lips and tongue dry and dusty, hard to swallow. When he was done pissing he turned and saw Tharn fiddling with books, facing the wall.

“Come on Mr. Max. Come on. I can take you up to see her now. Furiosa. She’s happy you’re back and you can see the green, the crops and the water. Come on.  And the mothers! Today the mothers gonna pull that dart out from your forehead.”

He turned to look at Max and his face was bright with a wide smile, clean straight teeth, bright green eyes. It almost made Max smile to see it. Almost.

“Alright. Let’s go then.”

Tharn took his hand, lacing their fingers together, pulling him deep into the mountain, up a series of spiraling ramps cut into the rocks, low ceilings, oil lamps burning in tiny caves to light their way.  He could hear water rushing behind the walls.

“Capable wanted you up there today. They’re releasing the ashes. They know its not really him, we couldn’t really get him, but we want to do it anyway, he so wanted to see Valhalla. And she witnessed his sacrifice!”

“Who?”

Tharn stopped and turned to look at him, his eyes big with tears.

“Nux. She told me Nux was the hero of the story. I knew him! He taught me to fix the rigs when they overheat. He taught me everything—“ the boy’s voice broke off and Max could tell his heart was broken. He could tell the boy cared.  They stood in the dark for a few moments, an oil lamp in the distance lighting half of Tharn's face in gold.

“Nux saved every one of us,” Max finally said. “Furiosa, your sister, me. We wouldn’t be here without him.”

He smiled again, but weaker, nodding that he understood. They climbed up the spiraling ramps until he could see a bright light ahead, yellow and hot. Then he saw the blue sky. And the green.

Max saw the women in the distance, under a white tent. It sparkled in the sunlight with what he saw were pieces of broken glass and mirrors. Furiosa was laying down, the wives around her, writing in ledgers, reading books. Tharn ran ahead of him into his sister’s arms. Max hung back and watched the two together, Capable running her hand down his cheek, over his shaved head, laughing. Maybe that was what made Tharn different. The fact that someone loved him. 

“Come on Max, come on.” The boy ran back and took his hand, his cheeks flushed pink, eyes bright, the smile on his face so familiar and strong. “Come see Furiosa!”

And then he put his finger on it. He looked exactly like his sister.


	4. Cool the Engines

They sent Nux’s ashes - the ashes meant to be his - off into the sky, throwing them into a roaring flame so they could ride on the smoke. Tharn stood away from the group, trying to hide her tears, the way her heart broke for someone she looked up to desperately. Capable had told her of Nux’s passing with her own choking sobs and The Dag had told her that the two of them had grown close on the Fury Road, that somehow he kept her warm at night, that he protected her from the other War Boys that would have torn her to bits. He’d even dared to kiss her cheek, something that would have gotten him sliced to ribbons had he done it inside The Citadel.

“He even took out Rictus,” Dag said, laughing and spitting in the dirt. “I guess there’s some good in those Boys after all.” She forgot sometimes that some of those boys were Tharn's friends. Or what passed for friends these days. 

Furiosa, pale, covered in bruises, leaned against Max as they watched the fire burn. She wasn’t the same Imperator that Tharn remembered from a few weeks ago, when she snuck into the vault to talk to the wives. Her rousing speech and entreaties for all of them to leave had made Tharn’s chest pound with excitement. She’d wanted to go along, told Capable that she wanted to see the Green Place, but when the time came and she made her way to the vault Miss Giddy told her they’d already gone.

_“I’m sorry child,” she’d said, holding Tharn close. “But you’re safer here. I know you don’t want to hear it, but they’re not going to make it to the Green Place. I promise you that.”_

She’d cried so hard her stomach hurt. Not only that Capable had abandoned her, but that Furiosa had. She’d trusted; believed and admired her. Her heart swelled to see how she was beautiful with no hair and no arm and more strength than half of the boys she knew. Nothing hurt her. Nothing broke through that stone face she presented. She didn’t care what anyone thought of her, or if they knew who she was, she did what she wanted and Tharn had wanted to go with her to learn how to do that for herself. 

Now she was feeling a kind of jealousy at seeing the woman lean against Max, propping herself against his strong shoulders as he stood and looked off into the horizon, arms crossed over his chest. A kind of anger that she couldn't go to Max for any kind of gentle comfort, couldn't even reveal to him that she was like the others.  Capable had taken that decision away from her.

Besides, he was only half invested in the ceremony, she could see that. His thoughts were elsewhere. Tharn looked where he looked, out towards Gas Town with the flames licking up from their smoke stacks, out somewhere away from the Citadel. When she turned back, Max was looking at her, smiling.

She wiped her eyes and went to get the needles. After they said goodbye to Nux, Furiosa would take his blood again.

******

There were hammocks beneath the tent, out of the sun, where Furiosa slept, guarded by some of the older Repair Boys at night, but during the day it was busy with people working the fields, moving crops to lower plateaus, harvesting herbs for the Mothers to make medicine, working on the new pully system, the lifts to bring people and supplies up and down.

“Lay down Max,” Tharn said, holding out the needle and the tubing, something she’d seen a lot of and was expert at installing. “I’ll be gentle on ya.”

“I know you will Little Wick.”

“Not as much as last time,” Furiosa said, grabbing Tharn’s wrist. “Don’t leave it in for too long. He needs his own blood.”

After establishing the flow, hooking the tube from the chain that hung from the tent pole she sat between them watching the dark, thick blood slip from him to her, wondering what magic was in it, if it would change her, if she would be more like him if she took too much, what sort of mysteries flowed through it, could she feel that it was a different blood? Someone else inside her? After a few minutes Furiosa nodded at her and she slipped the needles from both of their arms, dabbing the small wounds with damp cloths before returning to her place in the dirt between them leaning back on her hands, drinking in the quiet sunlight. They didn’t talk, no one talked. The breeze made their hammocks sway and in a matter of minutes the Imperator was asleep.

“She’s a tough one,” Max said. “Won’t admit when she needs to stop. Reminds me of someone.” He was looking out at the gardens again, the newer crops, still tender and green, wheat and soybeans. Misters came on automatically every half hour during the hotter months, keeping their soil rich and damp.  One of the mothers had given him a heart stalk of spiky rosemary that he'd stripped and was worrying between his teeth.

“She’s perfect,” Tharn said, watching her sleep, her robotic arm twitching a bit from the muscle memory in her bicep. “I wanted to be just like her.” 

“What’s that?”

“I only mean, well, she drove the biggest Rig, didn’t she? And she was always the one to bring back the shipments from Gas Town. Immortan trusted her.”

“No he didn’t, Wick. He didn’t trust anyone.”

They fell silent again and before long it was Max who slept beside her.

The spent the remainder of the afternoon up in the gardens. Even though she should have been down in the shops, Tharn helped the women work the crops, picking beans and pulling carrots to bring down to the citizens. Those were the days she knew she was better off, even if she lived her whole life in hiding, she wasn’t living it on the dry and dusty desert floor, fighting for her life, for room, for a place to just be.

It wasn’t until the sun was going down, when the sky was peachy purple, the sun pink on the horizon that she realized she couldn’t find Capable. Furiosa and Max were talking about things she couldn’t understand, power and alliances and keeping peace. The other women were putting together some sort of late supper, boiling grains, roasting fat lizard tails. Tharn got up and headed down into the mountain and found Capable in the vault holding dusty pair of goggles and crying.

“Hey, where you been? We’re gonna have supper,” Tharn said, feeling awkward, as if walking in on something she shouldn’t have seen.

“Oh hey Birdie, I’m not hungry so much. I’m going to get some sleep, maybe take a cool bath.”

Like all the dust covered mirrors in the vault, Capable had been dulled since the ride out on Fury Road. Her eyes weren’t as bright and mischievous. She didn’t sing or tell jokes like she used to, doing her best to keep everyone’s spirits up. It used to be that Capable could even make Miss Giddy smile, and that was hard to do. Tharn wanted to fix it. That’s what Repair Boys did. They fixed things, by any means necessary.

“What’s making you cry?”

“It’s been a hard couple of days, bird. Everything’s changed and it feels…off. I miss Angharad, I’m sad for her baby, even if it was Joe’s. I miss…” Capable ran her fingers over the cracked and dirty lenses of the goggles. Tharn could see the letters scratched into the black rubber strap, angular, sharp looking. **NUX**. “They wanted to burn these.  It was all we had.  They wanted to throw them in the fire but I couldn't let them do it. I miss Nux. He…”

“Did you fuck with him?” Tharn asked, knowing only that word, nothing gentler. It was the word the boys used when they talked about the wives behind their backs. Tharn had heard what all those boys wanted to do to them, to any women they came across on the flats, or men, or anything that would release the “rumbling in their engine”. Girl blood bags suffered for days before they were left in their cages.  Tharn had heard and said the word a thousand times but still Capable flinched at the utterance.

“No, Wick. I did not. But when he was with us he was happy…even if it was just for a day. And I’m sad that he’s gone.”

“He’s in Valhalla. He’s happier there. It’s where we’re all meant to go.”

Capable sniffed up her tears and wiped her eyes, patting the bed next to her.  Tharn didn't sit.  

“Has Max been nice to you?”

Tharn flushed red in the cheeks, down her neck and across her chest. She jumped up from the bed and shut the vault door, unwrapping her bandages.

“I don’t want to hide anymore. I don’t have to hide anymore. Joe won’t come for me. And it hurts,” she said freeing her breasts and flopping down on her back next to her sister. “I don’t want to be Tharn anymore. Furiosa made it safe.”

“No, little bird.   She just made it different.”

Capable stood and went to the trunk where the women kept what few pieces of clothing they were granted. She found new strips of muslin, clean, not streaked with oil and grease or stained with guzzoline spots. “There are still men here; men who have lived seeing us as nothing but breeders and things, possessions to be taken and used.” She pulled Tharn to standing and pulled her arms out to the sides to rewrap her. Luckily her breasts were small, but there would be questions soon, about her size, her muscles, her nipped in waist and long slender fingers.  They would wonder where her chest scars were, why she hadn't given a blood sacrifice to the engine.  They both knew that time was running out on this charade.  Only Tharn knew what would happen when the pit boys found out.  But with Max there, she could stay safe.

“Is it because of Max that you don’t want to hide?” She asked quietly. “He makes you feel…different?”

Tharn nodded, but couldn’t explain how he made her feel. He’d barely said ten words to her, but she just liked staring at his jaw, at the muscles moving in his arms, his sea green eyes. She didn’t need to fuck with him, she just wanted Max to…know her. Who she really was. Whoever that was. She couldn’t remember her first name. Her birth name.

"You never felt that way for anyone else?  Any of the boys in the shops?"

Capable wrapped loosely and put her arm around her sister’s shoulder. “Let’s go to the baths. We’ll relax, you can get out of those awful pants, soak your muscles. We’ll both feel better. OK?”

They made their way down the ramps to the cooler levels of the cave, where there was less light. Through the walls they heard the shops, the trucks being repaired, rebuilt. Old scrap being turned into new rigs. Down near the baths, the oil lamps were fewer and further between.  The noise from the repair caves was muffled, the air was thick with steam, humidity, smelling of earth and oil.  Bats hung from the ceiling, watching them approach.

Capable and Tharn stripped down and sunk into the rock pools, the elder ducking beneath the water to slick back her thick fiery hair. When she came back up Tharn splashed her and the two laughed, relishing the opportunity to get the dust and grease and blood and dirt off of their skin, out from under the fingernails. It was rare that anyone bathed, the War Boys sometimes didn’t wet themselves down for weeks at a time. It was too long a process to get covered again, whited and greased. But for Tharn, it was glorious. It loosened her aching muscles, warmed the tension in her shoulders.  When she was bleeding each month the warm water made her stomach feel better. When she soaked in the flame heated water she realized that she walked around all day with her jaw clenched tight. Tharn was a perfect name for her. Her life was lived in constant worry of being sniffed out, caught in the sights of a hunter, frozen in fear. This was the only time she could be herself.

Capable ran her fingers through her hair and scrubbed her skin with a cake of pink soap that the wives shared before getting out of the tub and redressing.

“Are you coming up? We’ll be in the gardens for a little while longer.”

“No,” Tharn said, closing her eyes. “I just want to float for a while. Then I should check in with the shop. Repair Hoons don’t sleep. There’s a lot of banged up rigs down there and I was hiding in the gardens all day.”

“Be careful, bird," she said. "Don’t be long in here.”

And she left the girl alone.

 

 


	5. Rumbling In The Engine

Max couldn’t remember the last time he’d been in hammock. A hammock. Napping in the sunlight with a bottle of clear water beside him. It was like a dream, like the tea dream. The peace.

“What you gonna do now that you’re in charge?” He asked, not opening his eyes, not looking at her, just…being.

“Not in charge. I don’t want to be some sort of …”

“Immortan?”

“I just want things to be more like when I was a girl,”

They were both silent, remembering different pasts but with the same ache of homesickness. It was hard to call up a picture of a time before dust and fire, before you got sick just by breathing, when the rain could burn your skin, before everything you cherished was up for grabs. But everyone held onto something, one perfect day, perfect place, perfect person. Its what kept you going, kept you from stretching out on the dirt and giving up, eating a gun.

“Even after the Great War we were happy. We built from what was left, made a safe place. People worked together. Building, growing, healing, babies were born. People…fell in love. There was still love.” 

Max said nothing, not his favorite subject.

“I just want everyone to have enough to eat. I want to get the boys off the chrome and put them back to work. I want people to work together. Not because they’re afraid, but because they want to.”

“You’re asking for a perfect world, Furiosa. It won’t happen. People don’t know how to be selfless anymore, how to be…normal. You’ll have to show them what makes it worth their while, not just tell them. Letting the leaders speak for us was what got us fucked here in the first place."

“The girls will help. They want to get to work on the gardens, on educating the citizens, teaching the boys to read…” 

“They can’t read?” 

“Of course not. Joe wouldn’t have allowed that. They could probably translate a repair diagram, write their name, but they can’t read books, they can’t think for themselves, all they know is violence and war, hard labor.  The Chrome and the Oil keep them in their war cycle.  Oil knocks them down, Chrome brings them up, and Joe keeps them where he wants them." 

“Not Wicked though,” Max said, remembering watching him work with the tarot cards, watching him looking at the books on the shelves in his room.

“Right,” Furiosa said instantly, “Wicked is different.”

“Why?" 

They sat in silence while Furiosa thought. For a moment Max thought she would admit it, but she didn’t. Instead she shrugged and said,

“He’s Capable’s brother. Both born outside the Citadel, both a protected class once they got inside.”

 

***********

She sank down into the water up to her nose, looking out over the rim of the bath to the other pools in the room, two filled with cold water, one other warm bath. Down in the pits, the garages, the bunks, there were shower rooms, dark stone rooms with sprinkler pipes like they used in the gardens. It was rare that the boys would wash down, but when it was time for new scarring, when a bout of sickness ran through the ranks, or after a War Party when they were hot with blood and sweat, grease and oil and their faces stained with chrome, they would strip down and go under the sprinklers.

Capable asked if she’d ever felt these feelings before. For a war boy or a repair boy, for anyone but Max.

She wasn’t…unfamiliar with this warmth, this heaviness in her belly, her eyes frozen on one piece of the body, drinking in every cell of it. She didn’t shower with the boys, instead making herself busy beneath a truck lift, her cheeks blazing with heat as they sauntered out wet and nude, the white washed away so she could see their real bodies, thick legs and rippled stomachs, the scars and hair and the gear between their legs.

The boys would fight sometimes, wrestling together until they were slick with sweat then they went away into the dark. Nux told her it was because they “got a rumbling in their engine” and it had to be let loose. She would lay in her shop bunk and hear them together or wrenching their gear by themselves in the dark, groaning and she found herself wide awake, listening to every move, the air hissing out through clenched teeth.  It would make her own skin sweaty, her own blood tingle in her veins.

One of the biggest boys, one of the oldest, named Clatch had cornered her once, when she was smaller, only fifteen. He’d sniffed her, at her neck and her armpit.

“Why you have those bandages still.  I've never seen you without 'em."

"Broken ribs, lay off it hurts."

"Broken ribs for two winters?  Nah, you hidin' something from us." He smelled her again, towering over her, poking a finger into her sternum. "Something off about you, Wicked.”

“Something off about you too,” she’d growled back, trying to be tough, to hide her fear. She’d just started bleeding. Capable had warned her that they would smell it on her. That she had to keep herself apart when she leaked.

He’d pushed his forehead hard against hers until she was knocked against a stone wall, the edges of the rock digging into her back.

“I can’t wait to cut you open. I’m gonna be there to cut you, I’ll be the first one in line.”

Wobble, a smaller boy, thin and quiet, something wrong with his back that made him walk all hunched over like a creeping beast, had pulled Clatch away.

“Leave ‘em be. You’ve got enough of us to push around, yeah? We need your help on Nux’s car, blew the engine out on the Powder Flats.”

She'd escaped that time, but she didn't know how long it would last.

 

She climbed from the pool and dried herself, pulling on her black shop pants and reluctantly wrapping her chest.

"Hey," Max said.  He hadn't come in, was only standing in the doorway. "What's all this?"

"How long have you been here?" she stammered, clutching the bandages to her chest. "I was washing.  Hot baths. Before I get back to work."

Max nodded and she secured the bandage at her shoulder.  They stood together in the dark, Max staring at her and she felt like there was something she was meant to say, something she couldn't figure out.

"I was just walking down to shops.  Looking for my car.  I can't figure out these ramps and tunnels.  It's like a haunted house."

Tharn smiled in relief and tried to walk past him but he grabbed her arm, again looking at the scars.

"How long did it take these to heal like this? To close up and fade?"

His touch made her light headed, his quiet voice so close to her ear.  Her engine rumbled.  She wanted him to touch her face like he touched her arm.  She wanted to touch him.

"A week or two, not very long. They're shallow cuts."

He smiled as if she'd revealed a secret, as if he were relieved.  His hand went to the bandage on her shoulder.

"So how long have you been waiting for these to heal?" 

She jerked back from his touch, stumbling against the wall.  When she tried to get past him he held his hands up in surrender.

"Sorry Wick, I'm sorry. Don't go. I need you to help me find my way back."

"Sure," she said. regaining her composure. "You should probably get some sleep anyhow."

She shouldered past him and started up the ramp.

 


	6. The Razor Cola

Chap 5

He was up early; awake, alert, his body strong. It had been months since he’d slept three nights in a bed…the same bed, months since he’d given his body adequate time to heal, and the days on the Fury Road demanded it. He sat on the edge of the bed and stretched, running his hand through his poorly cut hair, wondering if he should just shave it all off like everyone else did.  It would feel better.  Cooler. While considering it he noticed there was an old fashioned cut throat razor and soap on the table beside the bath and a small cracked mirror beside it.

“I found those in the Immortan’s sanctuary.”

Tharn was in the doorway, waiting to be granted permission to come in. In addition to the bandages around his chest he had a split lower lip, his cheek swollen and pink, a small cut under his right eye.

“What happened?”

Tharn took his question as an ok to enter and brought in a bottle of water and a plate of bread and broth.

“Ah, nothin’, a disagreement between rig rats. We’re trying to fix up the other war rig. Still need to go get a shipment from Gas Town and we don’t have anything to carry it in.”

Max nodded, not believing a word of the story but deciding not to push it. Tharn sat on his bed examining the pieces of his knee brace while he ate and shaved His face. While the white linen was a relief in the heat, he did put his heavy boots on then reached out for the brace.

“We could improve on that,” Tharn said. “I bet we could make it smaller…lighter. We’re always trying to do that. We made Imperator's hand down there in the shops and she can do damn near anything with it."

“Believe me, I know. Listen, Furiosa said they’ve started bringing back wreckage from the canyon. I was hoping you’d take me down to the shops and see if we can find my vehicle.”

“Yeah sure. Sure we can. Might be in pieces, but we'll find it."

“You can show me where you work,” he said and she laughed in response.

"Why would you want to see that?"

*******

The shops were busy, glowing orange from the furnaces and forges, packed wall to wall with the burnt out, crumpled wrecks rolling in on flatbed trucks, the smell of the bodies of broken, battered war boys coming in behind them. Nearly a full generation was lost, some so burnt and twisted that Tharn couldn’t recognize them. But she was sure that none of them were Nux.  She looked close enough.  She looked at the scarrings, the faces, she looked for the shape of his ear.  He'd been one she'd looked up to for years and not easily forgotten.  There were others, less important corpses left outside the shops.  The body of Rictus was burned by the citzens, a great cheer going up as the smell of roasting meat filled the air.

She walked Max through the repair bays, showing him the tools, the racks, the pipes that brought in oil and fuel.  They looked in at the weapons room, now close to empty having been raided to bring back the wives only a few grenade spears left bundled in the far corner, some guns empty of their ammunition. He walked beside her, nodding, commenting once or twice, but mostly just watching her talk.  It made her feel claustrophobic and warm, but she also couldn't stop, the words tumbling out like teeth chattering in the cold.

“Tharn! Get your skinny ass over here and hold up this door frame,” a Boy yelled out. It was Cog, a lancer near the end of his half life, happier to spend his final days fixing rigs than cheating death. He was eternally stuck on the Chrome, unable to function without breathing in the spray, and his attitude was at best rude and at worst violent towards the younger Repair Boys, reserving most of his wrath for the youngest, the healthiest.

 “I’ll be over later, I’m helping Max find his car. Remember we tricked it out last week? The Razor Cola?”

In an instant Cog was in her face, holding her up against the wall by her neck.

“I don’t give a fuck what you’re helping Max with. When I say I need your help, you drop the blood bag and help.”

While she struggled to breathe, she heard Max’s voice, calm and even.

“Leave him alone,” he said, standing at Cog’s side, holding a gun to his temple.

“What's that mate? You’re gonna shoot me for a little workplace disagreement?” Cog said, his laugh nervous.

“Without fucking blinking,” Max answered.

He let her go, skittering away into the repair bay as she collapsed to the ground, drawing in great gasps of air. Max helped her to her feet and rubbed her head affectionately.

“You have a lot of friends down here, eh?” Max asked, smiling.

“Most of them are dead now,” she answered. “But yeah, I used to have a lot of friends.”

They left the lower shops and walked up through the corridor where the bloodbag cages hung empty, old tubes and muzzles dangling like ivy from the walls. Max tapped one of the cages with his knuckles and it swung back and forth, creaking in the silence.

“Did you see Nux die?” She asked him, looking over at the Shrine to V8, all but empty of wheels, a sign of all the war boys missing in action or still on the Road. On the walls around it were the wheels of boys long gone to Valhalla, cleaned up and chromed before being mounted to the rocks with heavy bolts.

“No,” he said, walking past the cages, looking past the shrine to the other shops.

“So he might not be dead? Right? If no one saw it?”

He turned back to her and his face was the saddest she’d seen it, tight with emotion that he didn’t want to show.

“He’s dead Wick. I’m sorry.”

She nodded, tears making her nose and eyes sting. Shaking her head to clear it she lead him down the tunnel to the bigger shop, where cars and rigs were finished and loaded up to bring to the surface. She handed Max a pair of black welding goggles before they went to the work floor and hid her face with her own.

“Well, he was one of my friends,” she said.

 Max nodded, realizing that strangely enough, he'd been one of his too.

 ********

They wandered through the wrecks, sparks spilling out onto the rock floor, the piercing whine of the saws cutting through twisted metal making it too loud to talk. The Razor was in the back, burnt out, stripped of its tires, door missing, but still able to run with a little work. Tharn ran ahead and jumped into the passenger seat, ducking down to check out what they’d added to the dash. By the time Max made his way to the driver’s seat she was already chattering about what needed to be fixed, what was in good shape. Her eyes were wide and expressive, he could see that even through her goggles, being near the car brought her to life.

“They must have brought it in early, got to work on it right away, because I’m telling you, it could leave right now,” her face fell after she said it and Max had to hide a smile. “if you wanted to go.”

“I’m not going until Furiosa tells me she doesn’t need me anymore.”

“Good.”

Behind them the bay doors opened and they heard a commotion, the citizens below screaming and cheering as the lift came up. War Boys and Repair Boys, Cog Runners and Pups ran to see what was coming. Tharn grabbed Wobble out of the crowd and pulled him back.

“What is it?”

 “The Rig! The War Rig, they found it, they’re bringing it up so we can fix her up, get her back on the road. Furiosa’s coming down, everyone’s coming down for it!”

 Tharn pulled off her goggles and ran to the doors. She yelled down to the lift before it was all the way up.

 “Was he in there? Did they find him?”

 “Who?”

 “Nux! Was he in there?” She hung onto the lift chains, hanging over the cliff edge so far that Max had to grab her around the waist to keep her from falling.

 “Wick…don’t…” he said, trying to pull her in.

One of the boys looked up and shook his head at her. 

“Nah. No one was in there. Gas pedal was locked down though.  Couldn't find the wheel either.”

She went limp in Max’s arms and he pulled her back in on to solid ground.

“Did you hear that Max? He wasn’t there. They didn’t find him in the wreck.”

He held her by the shoulders so that she would see him speak, so she could focus on his eyes. He held her close so she could hear him in the commotion.

“Don’t do this Wick. Don’t. He’s gone. He’s dead.”

“Don’t say that. Don’t! Unless you saw him die, you don’t know. You told them. You told them that you saw Splendid….you saw her…go under the wheels. Did you see him? Did you see him die?”

He had no answer for her even though he knew. He knew there was no way to survive the explosion in the canyon. When he looked back at her she was crying, her eyes red, overflowing with tears.

“You don’t know,” she said quietly, but there wasn’t any strength behind it.

 

Without thinking he grabbed her and held her. She clutched him as if she would fall again, burying her face in his chest, her shoulders shaking as she sobbed. He held her for too long and she didn’t pull away. Over her shoulder he saw the rest of them racing down the corridor, Capable at the front, holding Nux’s goggles as if he would be there waiting for her to return them.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> don't worry. the smut is coming....


	7. The Red Wind

It was there in the shops that he knew; and it wasn’t just the curve of her waist, or the earthy sweet smell of her skin. In those few moments, surrounded by a whirlwind of metal and dust, heat and confusion, the way she’d clung to him and cried, pressing against him as if he could swallow her up and hide her from the world, he’d felt it only once before. When the other women arrived he’d let go of her, pushing her to arms length, still unable to take his fingers from her arm.

“Wick,” he said, trying to come up with any sane way to reveal what he knew.

But she was in mourning, curled into her sister’s arm as the blackened, twisted remains of the war rig appeared, rolling off the lift into the main repair bay.

His moment had passed.

“Will you go back to the Canyon?” Wick asked, clinging to Capable and The Dag. “For the rest? For the other bodies?”

“No way mate,” someone said, climbing atop the wreck, and pulling off the driver’s side door. “Red Wind comin’. No one’s goin anywhere.”

Max walked to the edge of the cave, where the Water Watchers kept the citizens supplied. Twice a day for five full minutes they opened the flumes to full capacity. Out over the horizon he saw the clouds, rust colored, curling up like a wave from the desert floor. Blue white lightning splintered across the storm as it rolled forward. It was slow moving, but constant. They had a day at most until reached the Citadel. 

“What do the citizens do in the storm?” He asked to no one in particular. 

Furiosa appeared at his side, squinting out at the landscape.

“They run. They hide. They die. What can we do? Can’t stop the weather.”

“What about the crops?”

“We have to harvest as much as we can in the next day or two, see what survives and what doesn’t. Some of the crop beds are movable, we can take them back in to the greenhouse rooms where they were hidden. We just have to realize that we’re going to lose a lot. That’s what life is these days.” She thought for a minute, the fingers on her prosthetic ticking and curling as her mind worked. Then she turned and called the remaining War Boys together, saluting them in the manner they remembered, their fingers interlaced, held above their bowed heads.

“This is your first assignment under the new law,” she said. “Go down and open all the lower caves, the War Boy entrances and bunk rooms. We have to let in as many people as we can before the storm hits.” They nodded and began milling around, making plans and Furiosa interrupted. “Take off your war paint. Don’t frighten them. Tell them its for their safety.” 

“Yes, Furiosa. Right away Imperator,” they bowed and saluted, backing out of the shops. 

******

The storm hit during the night. Max woke with a start, reaching for his gun, thinking they were under attack. In a matter of moments, Wick was at the doorway.

“Come on," she said. "We have to go help."

******

 

The dust blew into the caves falling as hard as rain, piling in the corners, nearly closing up the entrances. Max and Tharn followed the boys out onto the ground, goggles and sand scarves hiding their faces as they helped people into the mountain. In the distance, thin wavering funnel clouds bounced off the desert floor, exploding the makeshift shelters the citizens had built. When the lightning got close Max pulled her aside, nearly screaming into her ear.

“This is the last run. We get these people inside and we’re done.”

They herded the family into the cave and the boys started piling rocks and metal scrap in front of the entrance but Tharn managed to squeak through before they closed it, going out for one more run. Max shook his head as he saw her go and pulled the boys aside to follow her into the storm. 

The funnel clouds were closer now, denser, staying on the ground for a longer stretch, pulling up people, dogs, parts of vehicles, whatever wasn't rooted into earth.

“Wick! Don’t go any further!” He knew she couldn’t hear him. He could barely see her through the rusty air, the sand getting behind his goggles, stinging his eyes. “Wick!”

She had her arm around two people, old women, hunched over, barely able to walk. Max ran to them, putting his arms around them, pushing them forward to the caves.

“Wick, get in the cave, now!” 

When he turned to yell it again he saw her, a darkened heap on the ground. His stomach clenched with fear, his throat tight. He called out to the boys and they helped the women inside. She was still on the ground, the storm rolling closer, lightning forking out of the clouds from every angle. The wind roared in his ears like an approaching freight train, everything rumbling beneath his feet.

“Wick!”

He pulled her up into his arms and she clung to his neck, burying her face in his chest.

“My ankle. I can’t –“

“Shut up. I told you not to go back out there Wick. I told you it was our last run.”

The boys moved the rocks aside and Max walked her through the cave, up the ramps to his room.

“I’m sorry. I just thought I could get a few more…” 

He said nothing, kept walking, grinding his teeth together so hard he could hear it. His heart was pounding, his breath short. When they reached the room he set her down and walked away, pacing the room, running his hand over his close cropped hair while she unlaced her boot to look at her ankle, pouring red sand out into a tiny hill on the stone floor.

“Did you not see the tornadoes? The lightning? What did you think you were going to do?” he asked from across the room. “Pick up three people and carry them back? Were you going to stand your ground when the funnel cloud tried to pick you up? I called you back in because it wasn’t safe for anyone to be outside, much less you.”

“What does that mean?” She looked at him, both frightened and ashamed, her arms crossed over her stomach, her bare leg stretched out, ankle swelling. “You think I’m a weakling?”

“No Wick, it means you’re human. Everyone was inside! Furiosa was inside, the boys were inside, _I WAS INSIDE_ AND IF I HADN’T TURNED…” he realized he was yelling and stopped, walking over to sit beside her on the bed, holding her ankle, looking at it before deciding what to do. “I was worried about you,” he said quietly. “I don’t like worrying about people. Everyone ends up in trouble.”

He pulled the box of first aid supplies off the shelf near the tub and looked for a bandage. Then, sitting down beside her again he gently wrapped the ankle, tight but not uncomfortable. She leaned forward to watch him work and their foreheads were nearly touching. He wanted to pull her into his arms, to tell her he terrified of losing her in the Red Wind. He wanted to -- but he remembered – they were still playing this game.  She was still a young boy.

“Listen Wick, you’re going to grow up soon and you’ll be a strong, compassionate, bullheaded w—“ he said, and she looked at him with anticipation. “war boy. And you’ll take on everything, and everyone and kick ass all over the desert. But until then, and while I’m still here, please Wick, let me take care of you ok? Just…don’t give me a heart attack and do things like that. OK?”

He smiled and she smiled back, nodding her agreement.  

They sat in his room while the storm raged over the mountain, lightning strikes rattling the walls, vibrations they felt even deep in the rock. She showed him her favorite books, pictures of animals that were once commonplace to him but a complete mystery to her -- beautiful birds and fish, domesticated cats. She read to him from the history books about the cities and towns of Australia, showed him her tarot cards, anything that would take their mind off the wind. And when it finally started to die down, late in the afternoon the next day, Capable found them both asleep, Max with a child's picture book in his hand and Wick curled up like a dog at his feet.


	8. Strawberries

Capable told him how to find her, the secret room hidden in the mountain, behind the food storage vaults, beyond the baths, deeper down in to the dark, where it was always cold.

"He knows," Furiosa said, when she asked why Max wanted to find her.  "He figured it out on his own and he wants...to talk to her."

Still, he waited a few days before seeking her out, allowing her sister to break the news.  It was obvious she'd done so because Wick all but disappeared, no longer acting the lap dog at Max's feet, bringing him breakfast, following him to the shop to rebuild The Interceptor, taking him on tours of the War Boy barracks and equipment rooms, introducing him to her friends, showing him off like a prize pet.  And he missed her like he never believed he could, having only known her a little more than two weeks.

"Actually, she's completely humiliated," Cheedo told him as they sorted through supplies in the old blood bag room. "She's been hiding like this for so long and she just can't even imagine what you must think of her."

He didn't doubt it.

Beause he'd felt drawn to her from the first day in a way he couldn't explain.  Was it a desire to be a father again? A protector? No. He knew damn well it was different because he found himself needing to be closer, to touch her, or him, whatever Wick really was. It became a daily necessity to make her smile, to hear her laugh.  He always asked her opinion, or her ideas because her optimism in this endless hell was contagious.  Her belief in what he could do like a drug.

********

It had been three days when he finally went to her. Three days without seeing her face, hearing her voice.  Like an unsatable hunger it left him sullen and distracted, withdrawn from the rest of the women.  The Many Mothers had asked him if he was feeling unwell.

"He needs his other half," Furiosa said, giving him a knowing smile.

He made his way down the tunnels bringing with him a bowl full of the first strawberries; the plants saved from the storm and brought to the solarium to ripen for the final week.  The taste had nearly brought tears to his eyes, sweet and clean, new.  Delicious fruit grown in the earth that had carried nothing but smoke and death and blood for nearly thirty years.  As he got closer the tunnels were dark; she'd put out all of the oil lamps that would lead to her door but he saw a glow up ahead, a hole in the rock wall covered with a thick heavy tapestry, ancient looking in faded jewel tones.  It was just piece of fabric but he didn't dare move it without asking.

"Hey little Wick."

"Oh no. No please.  Please just go away."

He stood in the dark, wondering what to do, how to explain how badly he needed her without seeing her face. He just wanted to see her how she really was, to touch her. How could he say it without scaring her? Scarring her? But before he could think of the right words she spoke again, softer.

"I wasn't...I wasn't trying to trick you. I've been hiding like that...like this for years...for all my life. To keep me from Joe. To be safe."

"I know that. Wick, can I come in? I brought you something."

There was a long, dark minute of nothing but silence, a quiet so heavy he could hear his own heartbeat.  Then she pulled the curtain aside.

Her chest was still wrapped in white but the straps of fabric were lighter, bright and clean. They twisted up around her neck, between her legs and around her hips, the tails of each end hanging like a skirt both covering and revealing her long slim legs.  Slung low on her hips was a black belt with loops of black leather holding all the tools she once had on her shop pants along with her driving goggles and sand scarf.

When she met his gaze her cheeks flushed a deep, beautiful pink.

"What did you bring me?" she asked, smiling in a way that he'd never seen before.

He held the bowl of fruit out to her and took a step further into the room.

"Strawberries.  Have you ever had one?"

She shook her head but didn't take one from the bowl. Max hated how different she was, how she kept her distance from him, taking one step back for every inch he moved closer.

Her space was a strangely cluttered oasis, filled with old blankets and cushions; the softness offset by old car seats and engine parts, little machines she was working on sat dormant on tables.  Oil lamps flickered, hanging from old rusty harvester chain.  There were wooden boxes of books, old yellowed drawings of animals and plants. The wives brought her treasures offered up by the War Boys, trophies stolen off their kills out on the flats - a worn teddybear, dusty red toy truck, a tarnished flute.

Max ran his fingers over the walls, the cloth that covered them to make the room softer, less like a self imposed prison, the only place she could be real. Seeing her bed in the corner stirred something in him that he stomped out right away.

"How old are you?" he asked, sitting on one of the old bucket seats.

Still she stayed on the other side of the room, watching him bite into a ripe berry, the red juice making his lips shine. He stretched his legs out in front of him, crossing them at the ankle.  She could see a strip of his bare stomach when he reached his arms over his head, the hair beneath his navel.  He ate another strawberry while waiting for her answer, a drop of juice running down over his chin.

"Eighteen years - five months," she said. "I've been in hiding since I was ten, that's when the pups start in the shops, get their first Whitening."

"Why are you scared of me Wick?"

"I'm -- I --" she glanced around the room, letting her eyes linger on anything but him, uncomfortable with the heavy heat she felt between her legs. Finally, unable to find any other words that made sense she said, "I'm not a little girl."

He stood then, walking closer, backing her up to the wall so she couldn't get away, but not touching her, not yet.

"I know," he said.

The words hung heavy with meaning between them.  Max found the fattest ripest strawberry and held it out to her, putting the bowl on the table beside them.

"Did you see me?" she asked, "The other day...when I was in the baths?" she instinctively covered her chest with her arms, crossing them tightly.

"No. I didn't see you, Wick. I just knew.  I could...feel it.  I knew there was something...not little boy about you."

She took the strawberry from him and bit off the end of it, smiling when the bright, tart juice hit her tongue. Max was frozen, his eyes locked on her mouth wrapped around the berry, her lips shining as she licked the flavor from them, the wide, beautiful smile when she nodded at his offer of a second fruit.

"The thing is," he said, "is that I don't stay in one place for very long, I haven't for a very long time.  And I don't...bring people with me when I'm out on the road.  I did it once and..."

"I know," she said, having heard the story of his wife and child, how they were taken from him, murdered. "Cheedo told me."

She picked through the berries, looking for the reddest, plumpest one and then held it in front of him, wanting to feel his lips touch her fingers, the heat of his mouth.

"But when you disappeared, Wick. When you started hiding from me, I was miserable. I didn't sleep because I knew you wouldn't be there to wake me up. I didn't think I'd feel like this, but I need to have you near me, whatever that means."

They stared at each other and, feeling foolish, she pulled the strawberry back, but Max grabbed her hand instead and pulled it to his mouth.  He bit the berry in half, then closed his lips around her fingertips as he sucked the juice out of the rest of the fruit. She dropped it but still he held her wrist, sucking two fingers into his mouth, his tongue twisting around them, licking them clean.  She let her knees give out, leaning against the wall as he stared her down, kissing her palm and the inside of her wrist before letting her hand drop.

"Are you...are you leaving us Max? Right away?"

"No Wick.  I want to fix my car.  I want to make sure Furiosa is ok, maybe go out to the Canyon and see..." he thought for a moment in silence then looked back at her. "No, I'm not leaving right away."

"Oh," she said, running her hand over her shaved head were a smooth auburn fuzz was starting to grow. "Then why aren't you kissing me?"

She barely got the words out before he was pressed against her, holding her face in his hands he brushed his lips over hers, relishing the soft, plump feel of them, the warmth against his own mouth.  She whimpered in surprise as he coaxed her lips open, the tip of his tongue tempting her own until they slipped together, Max groaning at the silken feel of it, her kiss, her whole body velvety soft under his.  Wick wrapped her arms around him, her hand tangled up in his short hair, one of her legs hooked around his.  She could feel his heart beating against her own ribs and the hard length of muscle pressing against her hip.  He pulled away to catch his breath, tracing the line of her jaw with his finger tip, keeping his hand on her as if she'd disappear without the anchor of his touch. She lunged forward, taking his bottom lip between hers, letting her hands roam down to the waistband of his pants.

But he felt her hands shaking.  He could feel her pulse, fast and erratic and when he pulled back to watch her, he saw her brow furrowed in concentration, or confusion. He took her hands away and kissed them both before taking a step backwards.

"Oh," she said, frowning. "You don't want..."

"I do," he said, not letting her finish. "I want you. I want to...stay here with you...all night...I..."

Her chest was heaving with breath, her cheeks flushed, eyes glossy and bright. So he stepped back further, looking away. She reached out for him and he pulled her close, kissing her forehead, her eyelids, the tip of her nose.

"It's a big deal Wick.  I just want you to be..."

"I'm not a little girl," she repeated, pushing her hips against his, blurring his vision with the blinding red lust that he had to keep at bay.

"I know you aren't. I know. I'm not leaving you Wick. Not for a long time. We can wait," he said, kissing her mouth again, his fingers splayed out on her back, the bones of her spine like a string of pearls beneath her creamy skin. "Just a little longer, we can wait."

He felt her soften in his hands. Overcome with relief her pulse slowed, her muscles loosened and he hugged her tight to his chest, just as he had in the shop, her head fitting perfectly in the curve of his neck, nuzzled against his chest. And the feeling was different than lust.  Different than the hunger; the violent need, the greediness he'd felt when he was desperate for release, with anyone, anywhere, hard up against a wall in some random town with some no name woman. Feeling her cling to him in the cold stone room, golden with light, he just wanted to hold her there forever, shielding her, letting her melt against him, soft and warm, where no one could ever find her again.

 


	9. Sacrifice

It was one thing for Max to find out who Tharn was; quite another for the other Repair Boys, the surviving War Boys, the apprentice pups to make the discovery. Women were a complete mystery to them, mystery or trouble or a way of using up unspent energy. They weren’t seen as equals, but as assets, things to be locked up and traded, used and sold, kept on shelf under lock and key, and when they were broken and useless they were thrown away. Any respect she once had with Clatch or Wobble, Cog and Ratchet would be gone. The thought of never getting her hands in an engine again, of never rebuilding a broken rig from parts in the scrap heap, of never being amongst the energy and flurry of the shops made her nervous, lost, a kite with no tail, no lift, no direction.

“Show them,” Max said. “Show them that you can still build an engine from the ground up. You can still use the tools and weld the metal. You can still drive.  Wasn't Nux teaching you on his car? Nothing has changed.”

They were sitting in the high gardens after Furiosa's third transfusion, Max leaning back against a rock, Wick between his legs resting back on his chest. The day had been long and brutally hot, but she’d loved working among the crops wearing her loose, cool linen, walking barefoot instead of in work boots, her legs free, the hot wind blowing over her skin, squinting in the sun. She was happy to let her skin turn golden, no more whitening, no more war paint.  There was pink in her cheeks now, color on her shoulders and the hills of her collarbones.  She and Max took these moments after sunset but before the moonless dark to be outside together, alone. The other women, thanks to Furiosa, knew to give them space to find their way together. Capable told her to be careful. Wick blushed when she said it and her sister pulled her into a hug, touching their foreheads together.

_“I don’t mean with your body, Bird.”_

While they sat Max ran his calloused fingertips over her back, drawing circles and swirls, anything just to touch her skin. The sky was a purple pink, dusky with the encroaching night, and in the distance great rolling clouds were building with flat anvil tops. An acidstorm would come in a day or so. They’d all be back underground again, hiding from the world's next attempt to destroy them.

“They won’t let me near the rigs now. I'm bad luck.”

“What about Furiosa? She just about runs the shops,” he said, kissing the bone at the top of her spine, unable to resist it any longer, drinking in the smell of her soap, her sweat, the dark, rich soil beneath her fingernails.

“She’s different,” Wick said, resting her head back against his shoulder. “She fought for her place on the rigs. I’m nowhere near as strong as she is yet. I doubt I could take on a 12 year old pup."

Max continued running his hands over her skin, moving to the scars on her bicep and forearm, tracing their pattern while he told her how strong and resilient she was. But it was his touch that gave her the idea. How she could prove her strength, earn respect.

“At seventeen you need to get your next scar,” she said. “A real blood sacrifice to start building the engine! It doesn’t have to be on my chest.”

“Wick…”

“I can let them do my back, or my stomach, under my belly button…” she said, her voice getting louder, filled with determination. She stood up, headed for the tunnel back into the mountain.

“Wick…they did those things for Joe. You don’t have to sacrifice to him anymore.”

“No!” she said, turning to face him in the fading light. “We did it for V8. We did it for each other: Shared pain, Shared strength. The blade can’t kill us, The Engine strengthens us! I’ll draw the design and bring it to Clatch. He’ll do the cuts. They’ll have to accept me then!"

He stood and grabbed her by the elbow, pulling her to his chest. He ran his hand over the soft fuzz of dark hair on her head, down over her cheek. There was that smile again, that excitement glittering in her eyes, her breath fast like her energy was barely contained.  He knew already there was no talking her out of it.

“If you’re going to do this, hurt yourself like this, don’t let one of them do it. Tell them to let Capable do it. Tell them Furiosa can do it.”

“You,” she said, looking up into his eyes. “I want you to do it.”

“Wick…”

She pulled his face down to hers and kissed him, soft and full on the lips, her tongue slipping over his, tasting him, drawing life from him.

"Please," she said, her voice barely a whisper, her eyes searching his for approval. "It won't hurt if you're doing it."

He held her closer, pulling her hips against his, every bit of them pressed together, kissing her deeper, stronger.  She whimpered beneath him, tangling her hands into his hair. In a matter of two steps he had her back against the rock they'd been resting on, his hand roaming up her side, over her bare belly. 

"Your skin, it's perfect," he breathed, his lips against her jaw. "I've never felt anything so soft, so warm. It's beautiful like this, unmarked, smooth."

His hips pushed against hers, she could feel him, how he wanted her, the gear between his legs was hard, pressing against her thigh. She felt the heat and pressure building between her own legs, the slippery sign of her own want as he kissed her neck, the base of her throat.  She ran her hands beneath his shirt, pulling it up to let their skin touch, aroused by the scratch of hair on his stomach, wondering what it would be like to lick his skin there, rough and dark.  He kissed her again and pulled back, rubbing her bottom lip with his thumb.

"I'll do it for you, if you think it will keep you safe, Wick. All I want is for you to be safe."

She reached her hands out for the waistband of his pants,

"That's all you want?" she said, raising an eyebrow at him but not daring to go any further.

He smiled but stepped away from her, putting her hands back at her sides.

"Now I know why they call you The Wicked," he said, smiling. "We'll go down to the shops in the morning.  I'll get Furiosa.  You'll get it all back. You'll be a shop rat again before you know it. I promise."

The wind picked up on the top of the plateau once Max went down into the mountain and Wick stood silently watching the approaching storm. If she got herself a rig, and some boys to drive with her, she could get out to the Canyon and find what was left of Nux, to bring him back for real, to honor him like he deserved. Then Capable could move on.

 

 


	10. The Scarring Ritual

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ritualistic scarring and blood within.

They went down to the shops together to find Clatch, and while she wasn’t exactly hiding herself, it was hard to miss her in the dark and oily crowd. She wore her linen skirt and wrapped shirt, but kept her utility belt slung on her hips and her driving goggles on her head like short nubby horns, her heavy black boots like shackles after so many days of walking around barefoot in the gardens. Max walked in front of her; not because she couldn’t protect herself, but because he _wanted_ to protect her, to feel useful, to prove himself worthy of something, to show them he was with her.

Her eye was on Clatch, working on the War Rig, but it was Wobble who saw her first, his soft brown eyes wide and confused, not much changed from when he was a kid.

“Wicked? What’s happened?”

He was never much of a warrior until he was actually cornered, a quieter type, soft, a little misshapen, with a bit of a limp. He’d been Wicked’s friend from the first, although a few years older, more in Nux’s generation. Still he’d taught Wick how to string up the bloodbags and prepare them for transfusions, taught her how to hide and wield a blade, how to appear meek, exploding with fury at the very last second.

“Hey Wobble, yeah it’s me…I…I decided to um…to stop hiding.”

He looked at her, more surprised than angry, then looked at her companion and knew that challenging or berating her was not an option.  He'd been the last Bloodbag ever strung up at the Citadel, not easily forgotten. Max stood beside her with his arms crossed tightly over his chest, legs apart, staring him down with the same intensity that Wobble eyed Wick.

“You leaving? With the Bloodbag?”

“Max,” Wicked and Max said together.

“No, I’m…I still want to work in the shops. I still want to repair the rigs. I want to help Max with the Razor Cola.”

“We don’t let any breeders in the shops.” Clatch’s booming voice came out from under the Rig. He stood and stalked over to her, close enough that he could sniff her, his nose near her throat. “I always knew there was something off about you, being the Red Wife’s brother… appearing from out of nowhere. Soft, round.”

“You let Furiosa in the shops,” she said, not backing down from his intrusion.

“She’s an Imperator. You’re a hole.”

Max had his hand around Clatch’s throat before he could say anymore. He didn’t squeeze him too hard, just held him still, staring.

“Be careful friend,” Max said. “She only came here to talk.”

He let Clatch go and the two men backed away from each other. She moved to stand in front of Max, keeping her voice calm, like speaking to a cornered animal.

“Things are different here now Clatch. The women aren’t just breeders. They’re warriors, they’re guardians, they’re farmers. I've put in my time in the shops and I want to be a War Boy and I’ll prove it. I’ll give my blood sacrifice.” She held out the drawing of the long, slim camshaft, looking like a bizarre musical instrument or alien bone. “We’ll do the ceremony, just like always, the same way. I choose Max to make the cuts. On my ribcage.”

“You couldn’t take it, girl,” he said, laughing. “You’ve never gotten more marks than those scratches on your arm.”

“I said I’ll do it, and I’ll do it. Tell me when the next ceremony is and I’ll be there. I’ll go first.”

Clatch laughed again, but with less conviction. Her face was stone and she wasn’t going to back down and Max wasn’t going to let him deny her. This bloodbag, now the big hero for bringing back the corpse of Immortan, rendering them all orphans, blowing in the wind, no one to serve. Why were they even going to have the Scarring Ritual? Who would it be for? Was the Imperator their leader now? The Wives? The old dried up grandmothers they’d dragged in from the desert? None of it mattered to anyone but the boys themselves, who'd worked for years, up through the ranks, kicked around like dogs just to get to this final step.  Of course without clean blood, half of them would be dead within the year. But he wasn’t going to tell her that. It was an easy enough test. If she could take the blade, she could come back to the shop.

“Three days,” Clatch said, walking away from them.

A small group of pups and repair boys had formed around them, whispering and pointing, amazed at Wick’s transformation. They parted to let Clatch walk through and all of their eyes turned back to Max and Wick standing there alone. Max took his hand in hers, lacing their fingers together. She looked into his eyes, took reassurance from them and then looked back at her friends, her peers, the boys she’d been training, the boys she'd been learning from.  They searched her face, her eyes as if she were a stranger.

“I’m the same old Wick,” she said. “I’ll prove it. I promise.”

*******

It wasn’t just the boys at the Ritual. Now that Immortan was gone, the doors were open to anyone. Wick sat in the middle of the shop floor, watching the Wives come in behind Capable, the Mothers came in after the rest of the War Boys and the pups, standing in the back, far from the center platform where the candidates were circled around a small V8 shrine, their cutters standing behind them.

Max had his hand on her shoulder, rubbing the skin on the back of her neck with his thumb as Clatch explained the meaning of the scars, the purpose of the ritual. He only heard a few of the words; _purified by the fire, blood sacrifice, eternal bond to their cutter._ He’d only agreed to do this for Wick because she’d asked him so solemnly, with such want in her eyes it was as if it were a marriage proposal. But also because if he was the one doing the cutting, he’d know when it was over.

“Repair… _boy_ Tharn The Wicked has asked to go first,” Clatch said, putting snide and heavy emphasis on the word _boy._

The crowd stomped their feet, hooting and clapping, some hissing their disapproval at seeing a breeder in the shops. She stood and Clatch offered her a cup filled with the Guzzoline Whiskey the candidates were given before suffering the ritual.  After three huge gulps of the bitter drink she moved to the table and lay down on her side, resting her head on one outstretched arm as the alcohol warmed her stomach, numbed her lips tongue. Unlike the other boys she still wore her bandages wrapped around her chest, but for the ritual she’d cut them on the side, holding them to cover her breasts as Max held his blade in the flame of the shrine, not only to purify it, but because burning metal would leave a deeper, thicker scar.

When he pulled it from the fire it was nearly glowing, the edges a deep orange. He crouched down near her face.

“You don’t have to do this, Wick. You don’t have to prove yourself to anybody, not to me or Capable or Furiosa. We all know how strong you are.”

She closed her eyes and shook her head, wanting desperately to just jump from the table into his arms, to go be somewhere in the dark and lay on his chest, to fall asleep with his arms around her, listening to him breathe. But she knew this needed to come first.

“Just promise you'll fix me after, ok?” she said, keeping her eyes closed.

It was long scar but the design was simple and she’d drawn it on her skin with ink beforehand. He traced the outline with the tip of the hot blade, not even scratching her skin, a practice run to see how quickly he could make the curving lines and detail.  With the first cut, she sucked her breath in through clenched teeth, her hands gripping the table with white knuckles, not daring to cry out.  Warm blood, dark and thick, healthy looking, spilled from the cut and poured down her side, seeping into the white bandages. 

"Keep going," she said, her voice shaking and small. "Please."

He pushed the blade in and dragged it down the length of her side to the hill of her hip before starting back up her rib cage, heaving with breath.  He put a hand on her cheek.

"Try to lay still Wick.  Please.  I promise it will be over soon."

The other candidates watched with mouths gaping as her blood ran in rivers over the plane of her stomach, her back, rolling down the pale skin of her exposed leg. And yet as violent and cruel as the act was, it was then that they all realized what her being a woman meant to them.  This was much different than the other rituals.  There was something luxuriant and beautiful about the dark crimson ribbons running flat on the curves of her body, something sensual about the way she moaned and hissed with pain, her back arching, her feet flexing, her mouth open, eyes rolled back as her body flooded with euphoria, the pain so intense it nearly felt like Max was fucking her instead of slicing her open.  Her moaning changed, her breath came short in loud panting gasps.  A few of the older War Boys, more experienced with women and seeing the signs had to hide the arousal that surprised them, their gear hardening as they watched Max make the final cuts, his hand shaking, sweat dripping from his brow. 

Clatch handed him the clean rags they used to clean the ritual cuts. Max dipped it in clear, warm water and wrung it out above her body, soaking her clothes, rinsing away the dark blood, staining her skin pink. She cried out in agony, rolling onto her back, her body bowed upward, every muscle tensed.

"She's done it," Clatch said, a tone of amazement in the words. "As of now, Witness Repair Boy Tharn the Wicked is a part of...Imm...a part of our army.  War Boy Tharn The Wicked!"

The observers, the witnesses, the remaining ranks burst into cheers, saluting Wick with interlaced fingers held high above their heads, crying "Witnessed!"

To finish the practice and ensure the scars took, Clatch covered her wound in the pale, powdered ashes of dead brothers.  It turned to a sticky clay as it met her wet skin and she stumbled forward, her legs unsteady as he packed it deep into her cuts, all to the sounds of her people cheering for her.  But the sounds seemed tinny, far away.  The room seemed dim, the air too heavy, and she crumpled to the floor at Max's feet.

Not willing to wait another minute, Max scooped her limp body up into his arms, dripping with water and blood, smeared with ash, and left the shop.  She shook as he carried her, her teeth chattering, her arms trembling around his neck. 

"Thank you Max," she whispered. "Thank you."

He passed the Vault, the room he'd stayed in for weeks, the staircase that lead to the gardens. He carried her down the tunnels, twisting lower and lower, away even from her bedroom, hidden deep in the stone.  She closed her eyes, hiding her face against his chest, taking comfort in the slow, even beat of his heart.

"Where are we going Max?"

The tunnels grew darker, narrower, but soon they arrived at the pools and he set her down beside one of them, the air thick with steam. Pulling his shirt over his head and kicking off his boots, he knelt down beside her, holding her face in his hands.

"I'm going to fix you.  Just like you asked."

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> A reader has suggested that I tag this for underage. I guess I wasn't clear about Tharn's age, but she's over seventeen. But in case this is still squicky territory I added a "Dubious Underage" tag as well as an additional descriptor. Thanks.


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